Explore the HowToo platform

HowToo is an online learning platform that supports businesses with their employee and customer training needs. With HowToo you can quickly and easily create high quality, engaging content that’s accessible. Whether you need to improve employee onboarding or retention and engagement with your customers, HowToo has a plan to suit your team.

Contents of this article:

• The sidebar
• The top navigation bar
• The lessons dashboard
• The storyboard view
• The Media library
• The Theme designer
• The Learner Academy

This guide equips new creators with the foundational knowledge to effectively navigate the HowToo platform, facilitating the creation of engaging and accessible learning content.

The sidebar

From the sidebar, you'll find your learning creation tools. From top to bottom, these include:

• Academy: Select to view your Learning Academy dashboard.
• Reports:
• Lessons: Select to view your lessons.
• Courses:
• Media library: Select to view your uploaded media assets, or search the in-built media library.
• Branding:
• Users:
• Theme designer (professional plans only): Select theme designer to create and edit custom visual themes for your courses.

The top navigation bar

In the top navigation bar,  you'll find your settings and profile buttons:

• Profile:
  • Access online help and support, update your profile details and log out.
• Settings:
  • Manage and view your account details (Admins only).
  • Add users and manage role permissions (Admins only).
  • Add seats and manage your billing and subscription details (Primary Admins only).

The lessons dashboard

The first thing you will see in your HowToo account is the lessons dashboard. This is the default, top-level view of your account. Here you can view lessons created by you and your team, and create new ones.

A lesson is a single learning experience, often also referred to as a course or module. It consists of a sequence of blocks (also called pages), and sections and an assessment at the end.

From the lessons dashboard, you can:

• Find your lessons according to three different views: My lessons, Favourites, and All lessons
• View and edit your existing lessons
• Create new lessons 

Create new lesson

The best way to get started with HowToo is creating your first lesson from the lessons dashboard. You can create your first course from scratch, using one of the pre-built, ready-to-go (RTG) lessons, with a template, or with AI.

Lessons can be single topic (linear), or multi-topic (branching).

The storyboard view

Creating a new course will take you into the storyboard view of your new lesson. The storyboard view gives you a birds-eye view of your course, with each page represented as a block.

From the storyboard view, you can add, delete, duplicate and name blocks, as well as drag and drop them into order.

You can also add or remove assessments, and check your course for accessibility.

Edit blocks

To edit a block, simply roll your mouse over the block in the storyboard view, and select Edit. This will take you to the block editor view.

Here, you can edit the details of each block by selecting elements and editing them directly (such as text elements), or selecting the elements and using the left-hand sidebar to edit them (such as media and question elements).

Preview blocks

To experience your blocks as your learner will experience them, you can preview them by selecting the preview button in the top right-hand of the block editor view. 

From the preview, you can also swap between desktop, tablet and mobile screen sizes to see how your block will appear across different devices.

Lesson settings

The storyboard view is where you can find and update your lesson settings. You can also save this lesson in its current state ready to be added to a course. Preview your lesson and export, check accessibility, and export this lesson.

Publish a lesson

Once you have finished your lesson, it's time to share it with your learners. 

Your options for sharing will depend on your plan.

• Starter plans are unable to publish or distribute lessons.
• Growth plans can publish courses to your Learner Academy within HowToo.  Employees or even customers can then access your Academy to complete their courses , which are tracked and reported back to administrators.  
• Creator plans can publish lessons, allowing you to export courses as URLs, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004 or xAPI packages.
• Creator Plus and Professional plans allow both external publishing and publishing to Learner Academies.

The media library

Selecting Media library from your sidebar will take you to your media library. Here, you can view media assets that have previously been uploaded by creators on your account, and search the HowToo media library powered by Pexels.

The media library allows you to upload and edit photos, images, videos, audio, web objects and documents to use in your lessons.

The Theme designer

To ensure your courses convey the brand of your business you can create a theme using Theme Designer. Creating a theme allows you to choose button and text colors, change navigation and add your logo to your lessons.

The Learner Academy

Your Learner Academy is where you can find and complete your learning. 

Learners can access their training via their Learning Academy. If you are also a creator, select the 'Academy' tab in the left sidebar to switch to your Learning Academy.

To access your courses you can either use the carousel navigation, or select 'view all'. From this page you can search and filter your courses to find a specific course. 

Well done!

You've just learned how to create, edit and publish your first course. If you haven't already, why not invite a team member to join your account, or take a deeper dive into HowToo's features?